Myths and Reality About Gun Violence

Dec. 17, 2015

To the Editor:

As you correctly point out in “Don’t Blame Mental Illness for Gun Violence” (editorial, Dec. 16), strictly associating mental illness with mass shootings is a misguided and uninformed tactic that oversimplifies the complex issue of gun violence. But more important, it further perpetuates the negative attitudes of the American public toward people with mental illness.

Nearly 44 million American adults 18 or older suffer from some form of mental illness. They need to be treated with kindness, dignity and respect, not with disdain and stigma.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 percent of American adults with mental health symptoms believe that people are uncaring and unsympathetic toward them. Therefore, it is critically important that we continue to direct our collective efforts toward educating the public on mental illness stigma reduction and elimination.

Stigma is counterproductive and discourages people with mental illness from seeking much-needed help and lifesaving treatment. Rather than fueling the precarious narrative of guns and mental illness, it is time for our country to take the sensible and evidence-based approach to gun violence.

R. JOHN REPIQUE

Chief Executive, Friends Hospital

Philadelphia

To the Editor:

Public health evidence confirms that keeping the guns away reduces not only suicides but also accidental shootings, assaults and homicides (“Guns and the Rising Rate of Suicide,” editorial, Dec. 14). A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be involved in such incidents than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

This evidence punctures the myth that a gun provides protection. The American public has increasingly accepted the lie that guns make us safer. Which is why the National Rifle Association was so keen to impose a ban on federal funding of gun violence research, a ban that Congress put in place nearly 20 years ago and that it shows no signs of lifting.

In the face of congressional paralysis, New York cities are leading by enacting safe-storage laws that prevent the likelihood of gun suicides, unintentional shootings, homicides and gun thefts. Firearm safe storage laws exist in New York City, Westchester County, Rochester, Buffalo and Albany.

Gun laws work. It’s a tragedy that Congress won’t listen.

LEAH GUNN BARRETT

Executive Director

New Yorkers Against Gun Violence

New York

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A38 of the New York edition with the headline: Myths and Reality About Gun Violence. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe